Game Concept

Overview:

A Slime's Labyrinth

Concept:

Set inside a mini labyrinth, your slime must protect its home to the best of its ability. As you roam around, only the newest rookies are susceptible to your attacks, so make sure you keep your distance from the more experienced adventurers. 

Genre/Category:

This is a single player 2D action game. It includes levels to advance through, a main avatar that the player controls, and obstacles/enemies to overcome, which are all elements typical of most action games. (See [1] for more on action games)

Concept Creation and Process:

The original idea for this game developed from the idea of having a slime as the main character, some that I got from watching the anime “That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime”[2]. From there I decided on the idea of an anti-game, where the player, as a slime, hunts down the typical player character of ‘Adventurer’.

I often enjoy playing games with a set clear condition (you must complete x in order to move forward), this led me to think of having one type of adventurer that the player hunts down, and another type that hunts the player. This would allow me to have a set number of adventures to hunt, to complete a level, and progress to the next. I then brainstormed ways to make the levels rise in difficulty, thus the idea of two types of hunting adventures was created, one with a higher difficulty than the other in order to give more variety. 

Target Audience and Competitive Analysis:

Because of the games simple mechanics and strait forward objective, it is a good game for less experienced players, as well as people who like to play quick games that don't take vast amounts of time to play.

Action games is one of the most popular genres of video game, this means that while there is a flood of these types of games around, it also demonstrates that there is a demand for them as well. Within this genre there is a lack of games that have the player playing as the typical "enemy" character. There are a few key games however that show that the idea of playing the 'monster' is a concept that can be well received by an audience. One example of this is the game "Dead by Daylight"[3] which allows the players an option of playing the killer.

Game Treatment:

You start each level as a slime inside of a labyrinth, along with a number of adventurers. In order to progress you must hunt down a target number of Rookies, with not being killed by the Apprentices and Masters. As you progress each level will rise in difficulty, either by having harder or more frequent enemies. You must try and work your way down as many levels as you can without being killed off.

The Adventurers:

-Rookie: This is the players target, and a set number of Rookies must be killed each level to progress to the next. Rookies are unable to deal any damage and flee from the player when within a set radius. The identifying colour of a Rookie is dark green.

-Apprentice: Apprentices are the lower-level enemy; they will hunt after the player when close in range and can deal a medium amount of damage. The move at a speed which the player can outrun if need. The identifying colour of an Apprentice is yellow.

-Master: Masters are the higher-level enemy. They deal a significant amount of damage and are slightly faster than Apprentices, but they do have a smaller radius in which they will chase the player when within it. The identifying colour of a Master is red.

(See first Concept art for picture of all enemies)

The Player:

-Character: The player is a small green slime. (See Concept art for visual)

-Movement: The player will move about with basic eight-way movement controlled by the 'WASD' keys.

-Attack: The way that the player deals damage is by shooting off short range balls of slime. This will be activated and directed by the mouse and left click. 

Objective:

The objective of each level is to kill a specified target number of Rookies, while surviving and evading the Apprentices and Masters. As the levels increase the target number may also increase, or the ratio of target to character in the scene may decrease.

Concept Art and Style:

The art style of this game will be pixel art, all art that features in the main game will be done using this style. All art and designs have and will be created by me for this game.

Current Concept for player and enemy characters:

Current Concept for wall tile art:

References:

[1] Action game (2024) Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_game (Accessed: 19 April 2024). 

[2] Fuse (2018) That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime. Available at: https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GYZJ43JMR/that-time-i-got-reincarnated-as-a-s... (Accessed: 19 April 2024). 

[3] Behaviour Interactive Inc (2016) Dead By Daylight. Available at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/381210/Dead_by_Daylight/ (Accessed: 19 April 2024)